Certain types of optical fibers have a buffer layer that resides immediately adjacent either the bare glass or adjacent a thin coating layer that is immediately adjacent the bare glass. A tight buffer is one that is in immediate (i.e., intimate) contact with the coating layer or the glass fiber. A typical material for the tight buffer is a polymer, which can be applied during the fiber manufacturing process. An example tight-buffered optical fiber has a core diameter that can be about 8 μm for a single-mode fiber and 50 μm or 62.5 μm for a multimode fiber. The cladding that immediately surrounds the core has an (outer) diameter of 125 μm, the coating layer that immediately surrounds the cladding has an (outer) diameter of 250 μm. The buffer layer that immediately surrounds the coating layer has an outer diameter of nominally 900 μm that defines the diameter of the optical fiber. The coating and buffer define a cover for the glass fiber.
Tight-buffered optical fibers find use in a number of optical fiber systems, including telecommunications systems, where the fiber can be pigtailed by connectorizing the fiber end. The pigtailed optical fiber can be used for a variety of active and passive applications. The 900 μm outer diameter is an industry-standard size for the optical fiber.
In order to connectorize a tight-buffered optical fiber, the end of the fiber must be properly prepared. This typically includes stripping off an end-portion of the buffer layer to expose the coating layer. Then, an end-portion of the coating layer is stripped to expose an end-portion of the bare glass fiber. The bare glass fiber then must be cleaned before the bare glass fiber is interfaced with the connector. The overall length of the bare glass fiber portion must then be cut to have a select length for the given connector.
The above multiple steps are typically performed manually and in the field by a technician. Even with using certain types of known stripping tools, these stripping steps are time-consuming and labor-intensive and can lead to imperfections as well as breakage. Moreover, conventional stripping tools are limited in their capability and can only strip a tightly buffered fiber to expose about 20 mm of glass fiber. This is generally because the normal (i.e., radially inward) forces of the cover against the glass fiber limit the amount of axial force that can be applied to the cover to remove a larger section of the cover from the glass fiber.